Former aide to ex president Goodluck Jonathan, Mr. Reno Omokri has said that there is nothing wrong in moving key agencies of Nigeria’s economy to Lagos.
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo on Thursday elucidated the reasons why the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) headquarters will return to Lagos.
This comes following the Federal Government (FG) order on Monday to relocate the FAAN headquarters from Abuja to Lagos.
Meanwhile, Mr. Omokri in a post on his X account formerly Twitter on Friday backed the FG’s directive, stressing that the state is Nigeria’s commercial capital.
“Lagos is Nigeria’s commercial capital. Abuja is Nigeria’s administrative capital. That being the case, there is NOTHING wrong in moving agencies that are vital to Nigeria’s commercial economy to the commercial capital.
“I emphatically support President Tinubu on this. Even the Securities and Exchange Commission should be headquartered in Lagos to be closer to the Nigerian Stock Exchange, which is based in Lagos,” he stated.
According to him, multiple Federal Government agencies in the United States are headquartered outside Washington, D.C., including the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, amongst others.
He also disclosed that South Africa has three arms of government even though they are all headquartered in different capital cities.
“The administrative capital of South Africa is Pretoria, where the President of South Africa must reside and do business. The legislative capital is Cape Town, and their Houses of Parliament are there. At the same time, the judicial capital is Bloemfontein, where the South African Supreme Court of Appeal is based.”
Omokri appealed to Nigerians not to politicise the ‘patriotic move’ and urged them to keep sentiments aside.
He further explained that when the military unilaterally moved the Federal Capital out of Lagos, Nigerians accepted it for the sake of the country’s unity.
